Words change in meanings over time. Sometimes, this change is merely a matter of convention. In others, it signifies deeper shifts in cultural perceptions. Focusing on such a deep cultural transformation, we trace the historical evolution of “management” as a metaphor. With the rise of modernity, the logic of the market has gradually permeated into spheres of life traditionally not seen as governed by the rules of monetary exchange. This logic transcends mere monetization; it encapsulates a broader inclination towards planning, quantifying and optimizing. Analyzing millions of documents that span multiple domains—newspapers, fiction, political discourse, legal decisions—we demonstrate the term “management” has expanded in scope from primarily business-related contexts to encompass one’s body, emotions, and personal relationships. This process began around 1980, as neoliberalism was ascending in Western societies. We draw on an ensemble of NLP methods, including contextual word embedding models and LLMs, to demonstrate how the meaning of “management” evolved over time, and how the self is increasingly described using the imagery of management. We show, moreover, the process by which management diffused as a metaphor by historically tracing which objects became targets of management, and which actors expanded the scope of the management metaphor.